When Priscilla Nash Conger '44 went to "check out the guys," she didn't guzzle at the Grille or scam at the Spaghetti Club.
Instead, she attended Bach concerts at Symphony Hall. And one fateful night, her musical forays paid off. In the tuxedo-clad ranks of the Harvard Glee Club, she found love at first sight.
"I picked one out from the back row of the third basses," Conger recalls. "I just thought he was wonderful."
Although there were some twists and turns in the path to romance, the rest is history. Priscilla and Alan D. Conger '40, who married just two months after Priscilla's college graduation, will celebrate their 50th anniversary this August.
The Congers' story is in some ways in typical one for the Class of 1944. Despite World War II, many Harvard and Radcliffe students managed to find romance and form lasting relationships during their time at the College.
According to an alumni survey of the Harvard class, 84 percent are married and only 19 percent have ever been married more than once. The median anniversary year of those still married is the 44th, and one tenth of the class members are celebrating their 50th anniversaries this year. Five percent more are celebrating more than 50 years of marriage.
But the war affected all elements of student life, and romantic relations were no exception. Couples were both aided and hurt by wartime transformations like the institution of co-ed classes, which changed the nature of relationship between the sexes at Harvard forever.
Constraints
Of course, relationships of the era came with constraints students today have never known.
"We had to check into our dorms by a certain hour...and you had to write where you were going," remembers Sylvia Maynard '44. "The dorm mother was in loco parentis."
"Relations with boys were more formal and had to be by special arrangement," Maynard says. "You didn't just happen to casually meet boys around the dorm or brushing your teeth or things like that. Dates were arranged and people dressed up for them."
When men and women did meet, it sometimes required bending Harvard and Radcliffe's single-sex rules.
For instance, Mary Anne Wall Hyde '44 met her husband Albert F. Hyde II '43 when he crashed a tea for Radcliffe first-years "to look over the crop of freshmen."
Romance was not only more formal but less physically intense than today, one women remembers.
"We kissed and cuddled and did some things," says Ellinor Benedict And social more left little room for youngpeople to experiment sexually. "This was long before the all ever happened,"Maynard says. "Virginity was supposed to be thenorm... That of course was a major difference fromnow." "In those days, everything was veryconservative," Marjorie Wood Drackett '44 says."No relationships unless you were married... Wevery much did exist within the framework of highpuritanical morals brought down by our parents." War Changes After Pearl Harbor in 1941, World War IItouched nearly every aspect of student life,including romantic relationships. "It was very critical time," Mary ThorpeEllison '44 says. "The first two years and thelast two years were totally differentexperiences." When the war began, formerly stiff and properHarvard underwent dramatic changes. Formalcoat-and-tie dinners gave way to casual meals.Radcliffe women found themselves clearing tablesinstead to being waited on by Universityemployees. And dances--which were generally formal affairshosted by houses or the first-year class--seldomhappened at all. Social life was affected by war rationing,which limited most students to the campus forentertainment and dates. This had a positive romantic effect for sameRadcliffe women, however. Harvard men couldn't getto Wellesley to meet women there, even if theywanted to. "All this business about Harvard men datingWellesley girls was not true," Ellison says. Drackett says the distance from Wellesley keptRadcliffe women in higher demand. "We were very popular because they just didn'thave gasoline," Drackett says. "We could walkanywhere." Co-Ed Classes Perhaps the most dramatic change in relationsbetween men and women at Harvard came in 1944,when the wartime enrollment decline forced theCollege to consolidate Radcliffe and Harvardcourses. Men and women could interact socially on muchcloser basis in the new co-ed classes. For instance, Eliezer Krumbein '46-'47 had aparticularly intimate co-ed experience in 1944when his clothes caught fire while he wasperforming an organic chemistry experiment. "Before I knew, two beautiful young women toremy clothes off and pushed me under the shower,"Krumbein recalls. As Krumbein fumbled to cover himself, he says,he noticed that the amused lab assistant took asuspiciously long time bringing him a lab apron. The newly integrated classroom broughtopportunities for romantic meetings as well, someof which had lasting results. Ellison met her future husband John Ellison '44a senior in Robert Hillier's lyric poetry class,when they studied together for the final. He gotan A, she got a D. They didn't see each other again until justbefore graduation, when a chance meeting in theRadcliffe Quad revealed that they both planned togo to Washington, D.C., in the summer--she to workfor the Army Signal Corps, and he to attend theVirginia Episcopal Theological Seminary. "He told me to call him at the Seminary once Igot to Washington. I told him, 'I don't call men,"Ellison says. "In those days, girls didn't callmen." But when she got to Washington, she made justone call to the Seminary-and was invited to thedance that would cement their relationship. "Of course I was a great hit," Ellison says."That was the beginning of the romance." Even before the classes were integrated, someactivities provided opportunities for students tomeet members of the opposite sex. Joseph A. King'44, for instance, recalls meetings his wife at aCatholic Club function. After seeing each otherfor several years, they married after he graduatedfrom medical school. Abrupt Marriages But the war brought people together in moredramatic ways than simple classroom interaction. For many couples, the war was an incentive formarriage before the fiance had to enter service. "A lot of us accelerated," Drackett says. "Theboys accelerated too so we could finish in threeyears." Many say they remember the series of hurry-upweddings that occurred while their classmates werestill in school. "One girl got married during final examsbecause she said that was the only way she couldkeep her mind on her studies," Maynard says. Some students didn't even finish their collegecareers. Hyde, for instance, left Radcliffe at 19. "It was wartime, so I was only at Radcliffe fortwo years," Hyde says. She left to follow herhusband into the service, she says. Relationships Split But even though the war often brought the sexescloser together, it also split relationships apartor made them impossible. Condon recalls being "quite romantic" with aHarvard geology major for a year and a half. Wakefield Dort Jr. '44 even rode this bicyclefrom Cambridge to her home in the Boston suburb ofMelrose in order to see her. But when Dort went overseas to serve in thearmy, the relationship ended abruptly. "I didn't see him again or hear from him againuntil this winter," she says. "I was watching theCharles Kuralt show... They were looking at theremains of a crater in a big field. And he said aprofessor, a geology professor, Wakefield Dort, isgoing to tell us about it." After college, she married Donald Condon, whodid not attend Harvard. Now, 50 years later, shehas still not seen or spoken to Dort. Even more than splitting relationships, though,the war often prevented them from starting tobegin with. At first, the mass entrance of young men intothe service may have drawn female students to theUniversity. "There were no boys at home, so maybe that'swhy we all decided to go to school in Cambridge,"Drackett says. "It was fun, but it was serioustoo, because the war was very much a part of ourlives." But as even those students in training programslike ROTC departed overseas, romance became moreand more difficult. Maynard transferred from Bryn Mawr in 1942. Bythe time she arrived on campus, she says, the menwere nearly gone. "I'm sure other people had more exciting sociallives," Maynard says. "But it was getting morescarce as the men were being drafted." "We mingled with what Harvard men there were,"Maynard says.
Read more in News
Shalala Speaks at K-School
